Tag: Love

We were expecting a letter from the the govt as early as September, and knowing how things can seem to crawl through the system we were surprised when it arrived several days ago, late October. Not too bad… as things can go in “the system”.

This is the letter giving us our interview date. This is the last real hurtle on the journey. This is where they sit us both in an office together with an interviewer and they can ask all sorts of questions to see if we really are a couple. Questions could be specific enough that you might only know the answer to if you are living together.

A couple of our friends who have gone through this said that the questioner was so nervous (because of the same sex thing) that they asked a couple basic things and stamped their papers as quickly as they could…”next!”

Within a few weeks of this interview (if we pass) Mabo will be presented with a GREEN CARD! And two years from now, proving we are still together, he will be given FULL U.S. CITIZENSHIP status.

With his green card, he will no longer be bound to any of his temporary visa restrictions…

Our interview is set for December 01 @ 10:15am! Wish me luck that I don’t forget his favorite cereal or what country he was born in… or something silly like that!

Three years ago I stood on the side of the dance floor at the Round Up Saloon and Dancehall watching a power ranger do the most hysterically funny and energetic line dance I’d ever seen! That was the official night that I first noticed Mabo. Less than two years later we were married. Click here to read OUR LOVE STORY – a true Country & Western Dancehall Romance.

Here we are three years from that fateful night. Mabo pulled the costume out of storage and put it on for the 2014 Halloween Block Party down on Cedar Springs (Dallas, TX). Three years earlier I did not have the opportunity to dance with this power ranger… Last night I had the honor of boot scootin’ with a Power Ranger! Happy as can be!

“Fat?! And you thought you were fat? You wanna see fat?! I’ll show you some fat!”

This was the adult me talking to the me in the pictures of when I was younger. I really wasn’t fat at all, maybe a little pudgy in some of the pictures; and by no means was my body the abhorrent image I remember holding in the mind’s eye of my youth.

It wasn’t always like this. Prior to the H-Bomb being dropped upon my psyche that fateful day in the boys department of Muirhead’s Department Store (see part 1), my earliest memories are of being surrounded by girls and woman at church as they are gawking and pulling at me, pinching my cheeks and going on and on about how cute I was and how beautiful my long white/blonde eyelashes were.

There was so much adulation heaped upon me that when I was 5 years old I cut off my eyelashes thinking it would make them all stop pawing at me. I was wrong; it only fueled them more. You would think that a young boy growing up with all of that positive attention toward his cuteness would build a strong self image and a strong sense of self worth.

What happens to a child when a great portion of his self worth is built upon being cute? And what happens when he then grows out of his cuteness, and instead is labeled something horrible, such as HUSKY? I’ll tell you; I began to judge my body as imperfect, not cute and not lovable. I began to feel unworthy of physical love.

Luckily for me, at a young age I knew I possessed the ability to make people laugh, and that gave me enough confidence to carry me through. But as far as my body was concerned, I felt less than; I felt unworthy.

This sense of physical unworthiness drove me to work hard on my body, trying to make it worthy. Through my teens and into young adulthood I would work out sometimes 6-7 days a week…. and I remained unworthy.

Worthy, in my mind’s eye, was an image of physical perfection; an airbrushed image of the perfect body. I remember staring in the mirror, with disgust, thinking, “How could someone love this body?” The sick part to this is, at one point, I was staring at a body in the mirror that looked like a slightly softer (not as cut) version of Mark Wahlberg’s famous Calvin Klein ad.

Because I could not love my body, I was incapable of allowing someone else to love me or my body. It wasn’t until recently that I realized that this physical unworthiness that I held onto for so long was the impetus for the destruction of many of my relationships.

The odder piece of this puzzle is that it took me getting completely out of shape, 50+ lbs fatter than my most fit body, in order to begin loving myself and my body.

It was during the darkest period of my entire life, My Dark Period, as my friends would call it (2008-2011), that I purposefully began the journey to loving myself. The events that lead to this dark period created the space into which I began to heal my life. Though this was THE most painful period of my life, and I hope to never experience anything like it again, I am thankful now that it all occurred as it did.

Because I began to love myself and I did not give up on life… my life is now the most peaceful it has ever been. Because I began to love my body… I am healthier than I have been in decades. And because I began to love my body and I did not give up on love… I met the absolute love of my life.

“Fat?! And you thought you were fat? You wanna see fat?! I’ll show you some fat!”

This was the adult me talking to the me in the pictures of when I was younger. I really wasn’t fat at all, maybe a little pudgy in some of the pictures; and by no means was my body the abhorrent image I remember holding in the mind’s eye of my youth.

It wasn’t always like this. Prior to the H-Bomb being dropped upon my psyche that fateful day in the boys department of Muirhead’s Department Store (see part 1), my earliest memories are of being surrounded by girls and woman at church as they are gawking and pulling at me, pinching my cheeks and going on and on about how cute I was and how beautiful my long white/blonde eyelashes were.

There was so much adulation heaped upon me that when I was 5 years old I cut off my eyelashes thinking it would make them all stop pawing at me. I was wrong; it only fueled them more. You would think that a young boy growing up with all of that positive attention toward his cuteness would build a strong self image and a strong sense of self worth.

What happens to a child when a great portion of his self worth is built upon being cute? And what happens when he then grows out of his cuteness, and instead is labeled something horrible, such as HUSKY? I’ll tell you; I began to judge my body as imperfect, not cute and not lovable. I began to feel unworthy of physical love.

Luckily for me, at a young age I knew I possessed the ability to make people laugh, and that gave me enough confidence to carry me through. But as far as my body was concerned, I felt less than; I felt unworthy.

This sense of physical unworthiness drove me to work hard on my body, trying to make it worthy. Through my teens and into young adulthood I would work out sometimes 6-7 days a week…. and I remained unworthy.

Worthy, in my mind’s eye, was an image of physical perfection; an airbrushed image of the perfect body. I remember staring in the mirror, with disgust, thinking, “How could someone love this body?” The sick part to this is, at one point, I was staring at a body in the mirror that looked like a slightly softer (not as cut) version of Mark Wahlberg’s famous Calvin Klein ad.

Because I could not love my body, I was incapable of allowing someone else to love me or my body. It wasn’t until recently that I realized that this physical unworthiness that I held onto for so long was the impetus for the destruction of many of my relationships.

The odder piece of this puzzle is that it took me getting completely out of shape, 50+ lbs fatter than my most fit body, in order to begin loving myself and my body.

It was during the darkest period of my entire life, My Dark Period, as my friends would call it (2008-2011), that I purposefully began the journey to loving myself. The events that lead to this dark period created the space into which I began to heal my life. Though this was THE most painful period of my life, and I hope to never experience anything like it again, I am thankful now that it all occurred as it did.

Because I began to love myself and I did not give up on life… my life is now the most peaceful it has ever been. Because I began to love my body… I am healthier than I have been in decades. And because I began to love my body and I did not give up on love… I met the absolute love of my life.

Like this:

There I stood sparkly-eyed and jumping for joy (inside my head) with my mom in the Boy’s Clothing department at the opulent Muirhead’s Department Store in DearbornMichigan, looking at rack after beautiful rack of the most spectacular clothing I’d ever seen in person. This clothing looked every bit as exciting as I imagined possible from what I had seen on TV shows, such as The Jim Nabors Hour! And they were mine for the choosing! My dream had finally come true!

Because we were the poor preacher’s kids, the Muirhead’s (members of our church when my dad preached in Dearborn, who owned a very high end department store) invited us to come to their store and pick out 2-3 outfits each before school started. I can still smell the richness of this store… it emanated the scent of wealth.

As I stood there, my mind exploded with images of how great I would look as I strutted down the hallway flashing people the peace sign on my way to my classroom on that first day of school. Every head would turn and gasp in awe of my grooviness! As I stood there contemplating which of these amazing outfits I would first try on, my world came to a screeching halt.

“Excuse me ma’am…”I heard behind me, while in the purple haze of my glory,“… you seem to be in the wrong section…”as I heard the sales woman whisper to my mother in a tone as if she were speaking of a horrible and unthinkable disease.“What?!”I snapped my head around just in time to witness as she paused for a few seconds more to look over her shoulders in either direction, I guess to see if the coast was clear,“Ahem, you see ma’am, this section is forslim boys”as her voice became even softer, and ever so slightly more malicious, as if she knew she was about to drop the H-bomb on a little boys heart,

“… your boy isobviouslyHUSKY.”

As the mushroom cloud was forming above my head, and before I could completely comprehend what exactly just happened, she turned to lead us to the department especially assigned for my “type”. Through the blur of my memory, I remember taking the long walk of shame to the dark, rear corner of the boys department as I was placed in front of the ugliest rack of beige clothing I have ever seen. The letters of the sign hanging over the one, singularly sad rack of clothing, designed especially for me, simply read, for the entire world to see in big fat, chunky bold letters –HUSKY BOYS.

My life was over.

“obviously!?!?”

“HUSKY?!?!”

It was official. In that moment, on that day in the late summer of 1971, at the age of 7, I wasfat…unlovable…andobviouslynot worthy of groovy clothing.

This moment in time wrought the basis for my self image that would follow me for the rest of my life through to adulthood. I grew up thinking I was fat… with varying degrees of non-love for my body.

Like this:

Mabo had an appointment for his BIOMETRICS (where they photo & fingerprint you…a necessary step in the immigration process). The form clearly states,

“IF YOU FAIL TO APPEAR AS SCHEDULED, YOUR APPLICATION WILL BE CONSIDERED ABANDONED.”

His appointment was for MAY 2 at 2 pm. Mabo thought May 2 was TOMORROW.

Today at 3:30 pm, as he was working on a form for one of his athletes, he noticed today’s date – MAY 2!!!

“NO! NO!!! NO!!!!!! THIS CANNOT BE HAPPENING!!!!!!!!”

He quickly got out the appointment letter and called the phone number listed. The recording stated that the offices close at 4 pm and NO WALK INS ALLOWED. There was NO option to speak to a live person, so he decided to drive to the USCIS office anyway.

He frantically searched through his stack of important papers to find his PASSPORT, which he couldn’t find right away because he was shaking so much and couldn’t hardly think straight. After what seemed like forever, which ended up being about 10 minutes, he found his PASSPORT along with all the other documents necessary and he ran out the door. The time was 3:45 pm.

The USCIS Dallas-South office is about a 12 minute drivefrom our house – with no traffic. At that time of day all of the school zones are still in effect…this would definitely slow him down.

3:51 pm – As Mabo drove to the offices there was a police officer stopping traffic to allow the cars out of one of the school parking lots. By this time, Mabo was nearly out of his mind with worry and fear of his application being “CONSIDERED ABANDONED“.

4:17 pm – Mabo walked out of the USCIS office, shaken – not stirred, with the official red BIOMETRICS PROCESSING STAMP upon his application!

THIS WAS A MIRACLE!

I think it is because he is so cute that they allowed him to come in and take his finger prints and his photo. I don’t know of any government office that would allow the rules to be bent – especially if it was after hours!